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| Author: | Mohamad Bazzi, Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow 2007-2008 |
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May 12, 2008
Newsweek
If President George W. Bush truly wants to leave a legacy of peacemaking in the Middle East , he’s looking in the wrong place. Instead of focusing exclusively on Israeli-Palestinian talks, Bush should do more to encourage renewed Israeli-Syrian negotiations.
The United States has much to gain strategically from renewed Israeli-Syrian dialogue. Syria could be pressed to play a more constructive role in the region—instead of being a spoiler or, worse, turning into a full-fledged rogue state.
In recent months Israeli and Syrian leaders have been exchanging positive messages through Turkish mediators. Unlike the weak Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Syrian President Bashar Assad can actually deliver on a peace deal with Israel . The Israeli-Syrian track can move faster than Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, where the two sides are still far apart on the central issues: Israeli settlements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the final status of Jerusalem . By contrast, the Syrians and Israelis mainly need to negotiate over the return of the Golan Heights , a strategic terrain that Israel has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
An Israeli-Syrian peace deal is possible by the end of the Bush presidency, but it won’t happen without the deep involvement of the administration, which is still trying to isolate Syria . On May 7, Bush extended U.S. sanctions against Syria for one more year.
Turkish leaders are not expecting the Bush administration to support these talks, according to an Arab diplomat in Damascus .
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